


Spotted

by nik_knows_nothing



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Canon Compliant, Gen, like it's not NOT-Canon-Compliant, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 21:35:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17353025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nik_knows_nothing/pseuds/nik_knows_nothing
Summary: "Sirius Black, the most infamous prisoner from Azkaban, has been sighted in Dufftown by an astute Muggle."-E. Limus, "Sirius Black Sighted", 9 September, 1993 Issue of The Daily Prophet(Because how on earth is "astute" the right word for this situation?)





	Spotted

**Author's Note:**

> So Sirius was spotted (ha ha, spotted) and recognized by a Muggle, and we're not going to talk about that?

Gracie Wallis had seen the reports on the news.

Of course she had.

It would be impossible not to.

Nearly every fifteen minutes, the news anchors kept putting up that picture of the gaunt-looking man and warning everybody that he was armed, and dangerous, and had escaped from maximum security prison.

_Location unknown._

Gracie had some problems with this.

For one, “location unknown” could mean anywhere from Dufftown to Devon, so this was hardly a helpful revelation for everyone to keep banging on about.

For another, Gracie didn’t like the look of the picture.

Not in a _he-looks-like-a-criminal_ way, because, really, who could say what criminals were supposed to look like?

They looked like everyone else, that was the whole point of being a criminal.

But she didn’t like the look of the man.

He looked— _hungry._

Shrunken.

Starved.

And Gracie wasn’t a complete imbecile, she knew that people that looked like that could be just as dangerous, if not more so, than people who looked strong and hale and hearty.

But still.

Prisoners weren’t supposed to look quite like that.

Not anymore.

Were they?

For goodness’ sake, this was the 20th century, people who’d escaped from prison were supposed to look sullen and stupid and vaguely blank-faced in their mugshots.

They weren’t supposed to look like they’d escaped from some medieval oubliette, like they’d just clawed their way out of an open grave.

And she knew people who’d done time—well, maybe not lots of people, but one of her uncle’s friends’ “business partners” who she’d met a couple times, and he was perfectly friendly, if a bit dull—and he’d never looked like the man in the picture.

So Gracie didn’t like the picture, which was unfortunate, since she only had to see it about fifty billion times more that day.

The pub where she worked usually had one television screen tuned to the local news station, and so it seemed like every time she looked up, that picture was plastered there for everyone to see.

It was…unnerving.

“Gracie!”

Gracie jumped, startled out of her thoughts.

Alisha, one of the waitresses, was standing on the other side of the bar, twisting her apron nervously in her hands, and Gracie forgot about the picture immediately.

“Alisha,” she said. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry,” Alisha said. “I know you’re busy and all—”

“Alisha, it’s fine.” (It was the middle of the day. It wasn’t like they were really pressed for time just yet.) “What’s the matter?”

Alisha chewed on her lip nervously for a few seconds, and then blurted, “There’s this dog outside, and it won’t go away.”

Gracie blinked. “So why’re you telling me?”

She wasn’t trying to be rude.

It was just that Alisha was usually the resident bleeding heart, trying to feed every bird or stray cat that she came across.

There had even been a memorable incident last month when someone had spotted a mouse out by the bins in the back, and Alisha had tried to convince them not to set out traps, for fear of “hurting the poor thing”.

(It hadn’t ended well.)

So for Alisha to come to her—

“Sorry,” Alisha said again. “Only—it’s massive.”

_Massive?_

“I see,” Gracie said, not five minutes later.

She and Alisha were standing in front of the pub, and Gracie was trying not to completely freak out at the sight of what was either a very large dog or a small bear.

“Massive,” she echoed. “I think I see what you mean.”

Alisha nodded.

“I’d have taken care of it myself,” she said. “Only I didn’t know—it _is_ a dog, isn’t it?”

“Sure,” Gracie said. “I mean. I think it is?”

“Right,” Alisha said. “Of course it is. It has to be.”

They were both apparently grappling with the fact that it was, in fact, a dog, despite not matching any breed Gracie could think of off the top of her head.

At any rate, the dog didn’t look aggressive, so that was a small blessing.

Actually, if it hadn’t been for the clearly visible rise and fall of the animal’s side with each breath, Gracie wouldn’t have been surprised if the thing was dead.

The dog’s ribs stuck out sharply against the matted black fur, its nose was dry, and the pads of its enormous paws were cracked and bleeding in places, as though it had walked for miles and miles before collapsing in the warmest, softest spot it could find.

The fact that that spot happened to be the mat in front of the pub was—unfortunate.

“Right,” Gracie said. “Well, at least it’s not dead.”

The dog gave no sign that it had heard them, just lay there, breathing deeply and evenly and looking as though it had no intention of moving any time before the new millennium.

“That is something,” Alisha allowed.

Clearly, getting a closer look at the dog had stirred the younger woman’s until-now-dormant feelings of sympathy.

“Maybe we should get it something to eat?” she suggested. “Maybe that’d help us at least move it off the front mat?”

“Well, that’s a start, at least,” Gracie said, and went back into the pub.

Walter, in the kitchen, gave her an odd look when she put in the order, casting a doubtful eye over the nearly empty pub, but he’d been there going on thirty years now, had probably gotten much stranger orders, and so started fixing the meal without too much protest.

“I owe you one,” she told him, once he’d finished, and took the plates outside.

Alisha looked up as she approached and she wasn’t surprised to find the younger woman hovering over the dog, looking down at it mournfully and looking as though she were a second away from trying to pet the filthy coat.

“Maybe hold off on that until we get some food into it, yeah?”

Alisha rolled her eyes, but took the first plate with a quiet “thanks”.

Gracie stuffed her hands into her pockets and looked on doubtfully.

“I wasn’t sure what to bring out. Figured anything too rich would be bad for it, right? If it hasn’t eaten in a while—”

“He,” Alisha said.

“Oh, is it a he?” Gracie looked where Alisha pointed. “Ah. So it is.”

The dog hadn’t stirred the whole time they were talking—was that normal dog behavior?—but when Alisha put the plate of food down by his nose, he woke up on the next inhale and started in on the food before they even realized he was awake.

“That’s just plain white rice, right?” Alisha asked.

“And chicken,” Gracie said. “Plain chicken, I mean. And rice. Yeah—I just figured, you know, what d’you feed a person, if they’re real hungry?”

She shrugged.

“That’s good,” Alisha said. “Good call.”

“Thanks,” Gracie said absently, and they stood there and watched the dog eat.

Once he’d finished the first plate, which took a little bit longer than Gracie had expected, because he kept closing his eyes like he was trying to savor each bite, the dog licked its lips and looked between her and the remaining plates hopefully.

“Not yet,” Gracie told him, holding the plates closer, while privately praying the dog didn’t try to knock them out of her hands.

Between her, Alisha, and the dog, she wouldn’t have put money on anyone except the dog, if it came down to a fight.

“Not yet,” she told him. “You’ve got to move. We can feed you more, but you have to come around back, alright?”

“Look!” Alisha cried, nearly on the verge of tears. “He understood you!”

“Maybe,” Gracie said, although she doubted that.

Either way, the dog shook itself slowly to its feet, moving carefully, painfully, as though every step was like walking over a bed of coals.

She’d seen the poor thing’s feet.

Maybe it _was_ something like that.

Step by step, she walked backwards, heading for the far corner of the pub, and, step by step, the dog followed, letting her lead the strange little procession around back, to the little patch of concrete that separated the pub from the shops next door.

He was even larger than they’d realized, standing up, even emaciated as he was, and she couldn’t help the chill that ran down the back of her neck with the strange grey eyes fixed unwaveringly on her every move.

Gracie stopped when they reached one of the vents for the heater, figuring maybe the blast of warm air would give the dog somewhere warm to lie down or something.

“Alright,” she said. “That’s good enough. Here you go, then.”

The dog devoured the other two plates of boiled rice and chicken with the same deliberate speed as he had the first.

Alisha had gotten over her initial nervousness, and was now rubbing the dog behind the ears, stroking his back, petting his neck and sides.

Personally, Gracie wasn’t sure this was such a great idea, especially not while the animal was still eating.

That was a thing, wasn’t it? You weren’t supposed to mess with animals while they were eating, in case they got confused and took a chunk out of your hand by mistake.

At any rate, this dog didn’t seem to mind.

From time to time, the big creature would pause in his inhalation of the food to lean into Alisha’s hand, or against her side, and Alisha looked as though she were in very real danger of falling in love.

“I’ll leave you to it, then,” Gracie said. “You alright to keep him company for a little longer?”

“Of course,” Alisha said.

So Gracie left them there and went back behind the bar—a few early birds had straggled in, but she still had plenty of time before the evening rush, so she wasn’t terribly worried.

Alisha came in about twenty minutes later, looking flushed from the cold, but terribly pleased with herself.

“I left him a blanket,” she announced.

“Where’d you get a blanket from?” Gracie wondered.

“It was in my car. Anyway, he’s asleep, now. If he’s still there when my shift ends, I’ll see if I can’t take him home, maybe give him a bath or something—will you help?”

“What, help load him into your car?”

“Yeah.”

“If he’s still there, sure.”

As it turned out, it was a non-issue.

Actually, as it turned out, the dog was only the second most abnormal thing to happen that day.

On her next break, off a pleading look from Alisha, Gracie filled a bowl with water and went to take it out into the alley—

The dog was gone. The dog was gone, but that was suddenly the least of her worries, because—

Because—

“Hello,” Gracie said, and was very proud of how steady her voice sounded. “You wouldn’t have happened to have seen a dog anywhere around here, would you?”

The man from the picture on the news was huddled against the side of the heating unit, the blanket Alisha had left for the dog wrapped tightly around his shoulders—Gracie thought, with a sudden surge of fierceness that surprised even herself, that if he’d run the dog off to get the blanket, she’d kill him herself, gun or no gun.

She was still holding the bowl of water in both hands, and she gripped it tighter to prevent her hands from shaking.

She wasn’t scared.

She _wasn’t_.

Or at least, she was determined not to be.

Again, it wasn’t like she’d never met—and some of her uncle’s friends’ business partners were shady as all get-out, no question about it—

She wasn’t scared.

“A black dog,” she said, still waiting for the man to speak. “Starved half to death, about the size of a small car? It should’ve been around here somewhere. Did you see it?”

He just stared at her.

Gracie didn’t know what else to do, so she stared back.

The man’s eyes—there was something about his eyes—something here was very, very wrong—

“No,” the man said finally, and she was startled out of her thoughts once more.

His voice was raspy, scratchy and painful-sounding from disuse.

“No,” Gracie echoed. “Great. Well, that’s just great.”

She was about to empty out the bowl of water, but the man’s eyes flicked to follow the movement and fixed hungrily on the bowl.

“It’s just water,” she said.

He didn’t speak.

Gracie looked at him a second longer.

She should run.

She should call for help, maybe—at the very least, she should be phoning the police, they’d been showing the number enough, she practically had the hotline memorized.

She should be running away.

The man looked away, staring hard at the ground, still crouched against the heating unit like he was waiting for her to scream or throw something or give him a good hard kick.

Gracie considered it for a few moments.

Then she held the bowl out towards him.

The man—had they given a name on the reports? She couldn’t remember—the man stared between her and the bowl, like he thought she might be making a joke, like she was going to pull it away at any second, or maybe just throw it.

“Go on,” Gracie said, feeling stupid. “It’s just water.”

In one sudden movement, he snatched the bowl from her hands and swallowed about half the water in one gulp.

He barely even stopped to breathe, and then the bowl was empty.

Gracie took it back when he held it sort of awkwardly in her direction.

“Where’s the gun?” she asked.

The man frowned.

“The gun,” Gracie said. “The reports said you were armed. Where’s the gun?”

Belatedly, she realized he might not even speak English— _no_ was pretty close to the same in a lot of languages, wasn’t it?—and so she made a little gun with her thumb and finger to demonstrate.

The man looked at her hand and frowned again.

“No gun,” he said. “M’not armed.”

“The reports said you were.” “I’m not.”

“Well, alright, then.” Gracie rested the bowl against her hip and looked down at him. “Not even a knife or anything like that?”

He held his hands up, palms out, as if to show they were empty, as though it weren’t perfectly logical for her to assume that the weapon was hidden somewhere in the baggy uniform he wore.

Come to think of it, that was weird, too, right?

She hadn’t known prisons still used the stripey type of uniform anymore—she’d thought that was just in movies, everything was orange now, wasn’t it?

Maybe wherever he’d been—

“Where were you held?” she asked.

Probably a stupid question.

The man had been studying the ground in front of him again, but his head snapped up at her question, and Gracie realized that, yeah, maybe that wasn’t a good topic of conversation, and felt her ears threatening to turn red at the realization.

So instead, she said, “Wakefield?”

That was where the business partner had been held.

She didn’t know a lot of prisons off the top of her head, but she knew that was maximum security, so it seemed a safe guess.

“Um,” the man said. “No.”

Gracie racked her brain. “Sutton?”

“No,” the man said again.

“Long Lartin?”

Another headshake.

“...Strangeways?”

He shook his head again, and she was out of guesses.

“I don’t know any other prisons,” she admitted. “How come you didn’t run to the continent?”

The man hesitated, and she got the feeling he was searching for the words, trying to string together his thoughts long enough to put them to speech.

“Can’t,” he said finally. “Something—I need to take care of.”

Because that wasn’t ominous.

“Take care of,” Gracie echoed. “In a murder kind of way?”

The man looked her straight in the eyes.

“Ah. Great. I’m talking to a murderer. Brilliant.”

Up until that point, the man’s face had been more or less completely blank, so the sudden twist of emotions that slashed across his features—guilt, then anger, then sorrow, then guilt again, and then rage—made her actually take a step back.

He looked away again.

“What did you do?” Gracie asked.

This time, her voice shook, no matter how tight she held onto the water bowl to try and anchor herself, and she hated herself for it, just a little.

“ _What,_ ” she asked again, “did you do?”

“I didn’t,” the man snarled, and Gracie took another step back.

Something about the movement must have made the man realize exactly how precarious his situation was, because he held his hands up again, retreated slightly, shrinking back into himself once more.

“I didn’t,” he said again, quieter this time. “Wasn’t—it wasn’t me.”

“Of course not,” Gracie said, and her fear made the words come out cold and cruel. “Everyone’s always innocent when you ask them, right?”

The man didn’t answer.

“Let me guess,” she pressed. “You were framed?”

“Yes.”

“Of course.” Gracie looked at the bowl, and then back at the man, who was staring holes into the cement at his feet. “Well, what were you accused of, then?”

“Murder.”

A short word, that—just two syllables, and that was all—but her own feet seemed frozen to the concrete, and some distant part of her brain was screaming that the whole _fight or flight_ thing was a load of utter rubbish, because she really ought to be doing either one or the other right around now.

If the man had noticed the effect the word had had, he didn’t comment.

Instead, still staring blankly at the ground, he said, hollow and hoarse—

“Thirteen people. Thirteen Muggles. But they only—they only sent me away for the one.”

“Muggles,” Gracie echoed, because what else was she supposed to say? “What’s that, some sort of gang or something?”

The thin mouth curled in a wry smile, and she got a glimpse of long, sharp teeth.

“Something like that,” he said.

“Why just the one?” she asked.

He met her eyes again, and something about those pale, grey eyes—there was something wrong with those eyes—

“C’mon,” he said, with another cruel smile. “Since when did they ever care about the Muggles?”

“Right,” Gracie said, and then—“I have no idea what that means.”

He shrugged one shoulder.

“This _thing_ you need to take care of,” she said, because something about the way he’d said it, something about the hungry look on his face—“What’s this thing you need to take care of?”

“The one murder,” the man said.

“What?”

“I figure I ought to commit the crime I was imprisoned for.”

Gracie stared.

“I did my time for it,” the man said, still smiling thinly, like he was sharing some secret kind of joke with her. “Seems only right, doesn’t it? I ought to at least have that much—”

“Stop,” Gracie said, because the quiet rasp of the words was coiling around her brain, threatening to choke her then and there. “Stop, what are you talking about? That doesn’t make sense. How can you commit the murder—”

And then she understood.

“He’s still alive,” the man said. “For twelve years, he’s still alive—and he’s let everyone think—they all think I did it—”

He broke off suddenly, and again, the rapid play of sorrow, guilt, rage, sorrow—it nearly took Gracie’s breath away.

“Right,” she said finally. “Because you were framed.”

“An explosion big enough to kill thirteen people,” the man said. “They don’t even look for the bodies when the flames are that hot. So of course, he had to be dead, didn’t he? Because where else would he be? They didn’t even _check_ —”

“Stop,” Gracie said again. “Just—stop.”

The man was quiet.

He’d been ranting like he’d forgotten she was there, talking almost more to himself than to anyone else, his voice cruel and wryly sarcastic.

Gracie glanced towards the mouth of the alley, taking a deep breath to try and steady herself.

“Why?” she asked, after a moment.

The man tilted his head to one side in question.

“Framing someone, faking your death—things like that don’t happen, not in real life. That’s just in movies, stuff like that—why would your mate there do something like that?”

The man looked at her for a long moment.

Then, simply, quietly—

“He killed my brother.”

Gracie said nothing.

What could you say, to something like that?

“He killed my brother—not my brother, not really, but the best man you ever knew, and his wife—they were only twenty-one, they had a baby—they were only kids, we were all just kids—”

He broke off again, pulling the blanket tighter around himself, and Gracie wasn’t sure, but she thought those strange grey eyes looked suspiciously bright.

_Twenty-one._

God, but even Alisha was older than that.

“He killed my brother,” the man said, one more time. “And he knew—he knew I’d found him out, so he ran. And he made sure I wouldn’t follow.”

Gracie looked down at him.

Neither one spoke.

Finally, Gracie sat, crossing her legs beneath her, because she didn’t know what else to do, and the man looked at her, eyes dry and hard once more.

“You don’t believe me,” he said.

Gracie shrugged. “I believe you believe it. That good enough?”

He mimicked her shrug. “S’alright. No one else believed, either. Tried to make them give me a truth—er, a what do you call it? One of the lie test things?”

“Lie detector,” Gracie supplied helpfully.

“Right. That. They wouldn’t.”

“They wouldn’t?”

“They wouldn’t.”

For another second, the man seemed lost in his own bitter thoughts, and then he shook his head, like a dog trying to clear water from its ears.

“Someone had to go to prison. Things were finally starting to work out again, they needed someone to blame, and they couldn’t find Peter—it might as well have been me, right?”

Gracie wasn’t sure if she was supposed to answer that question.

“Okay,” she said. “So you’re going to find this Peter and kill him now, is that it?”

He didn’t answer.

“Seems like a waste of time, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t.”

Gracie looked over sharply.

Something almost like humor was playing about the corners of his mouth, but it was too sharp, too cold, and she thought about commenting on the fact, wondered exactly how friendly she was supposed to be with the convicted murderer sitting a safe distance away.

“You said your friend had a baby,” she said instead. “What happened to the baby?”

The question seemed to startle him for some reason.

“They gave him away,” he said, after another pause. “They gave the boy to Lily’s sister—Lily never would’ve wanted—I tried to take him, but they gave him to her sister—”

“Why don’t you go see him?” Gracie asked, before he could build up a full head of steam. “Instead of trying to go kill someone who may or may not have framed you—”

“He did—”

“—alright, fine, he did, whatever. Why waste your time on Peter? Go find the boy, make sure your friend’s kid is okay.”

The man laughed. It wasn’t a very friendly-sounding laugh, but it rounded out his face, and Gracie realized with a jolt of surprise that he wasn’t nearly as old as she’d thought he was.

Still haggard, still starved half to death, it looked like, still dirty and grimy and looking like a vampire who’d just had a nap in a landfill—

But he was young.

He was so much younger than she’d thought him to be, before, and for some reason, the thought made her so, so sad—

“Tried that,” he said. “They got there before me, though. And now Peter’s going to be on him—on his friends—every hour of the day.”

Gracie still wasn’t sure if she believed him.

Still, if he _was_ telling the truth—and that was still a pretty big _if_ — If he wasn’t completely crazy, and even part of what he described had actually happened—

If this boy really was stuck with his parents’ murderer—she thought about her uncle, and the man she’d known who’d been in at Wakefield, thought about the way deals were made and forged and the way her uncle had tried so hard not to let her know—if it was true—

“Eye for an eye,” one of her uncle’s friends had said once, ages ago. “It’s Biblical, even, you can look it up, Gracie. It’s only right.”

_It’s only right._

_If it was true—_

“God,” she said. “That’s a lot.”

The man nodded.

“It’s a lot,” he said.

Then he looked at her, looked at the empty bowl in her hands, at the mouth of the alley out behind them.

“Are you going to call the police?” he asked.

There wasn’t much point to lying.

“Yes.”

The man nodded again, like he’d expected as much, which, good for him, literally anyone could have expected that much.

“Are you going to wait until I’ve gone?”

“Haven’t decided yet.”

“So I should leave quick, then. Before you make up your mind.”

“That’d probably be a good idea.”

The man stood—faster than she’d have guessed, from the look of him—and Gracie climbed to her feet, too.

He looked at her for a second, and then—

“You still don’t believe me, do you?”

Gracie pushed her hands into her pockets. “Haven’t decided that, either.”

“Fair enough.”

The man folded the blanket carefully, and then held it out like a peace offering.

“Here,” he said, suddenly awkward. “This was the other girl’s. From her car.”

“I know,” Gracie said. “She brought it for the dog. Listen, if what you said was true—”

She thought he was going to jump in again with another “it was” or something like that, but he just looked at her, tipped his head to one side again, waiting.

“If it was true,” she said. “Then I—I hope you find the kid. And I would hope you’d do that before you try going after that Peter bloke—but I hope the kid’s alright.”

It was the most she could offer.

Even so, it seemed to be enough.

“Thank you,” the man said.

His voice was still raspy, broken from disuse, but he managed to smooth the two words over enough to hide it.

Gracie nodded.

Shifting the bowl and the blanket to one arm, she stuck out her hand, and he stared at it for a few seconds.

Then he shook her hand, and his own grasp was icy cold.

“Go find the boy,” Gracie said, one more time, like it would make any difference.

The man, still staring at their hands, nodded.

“Alright,” he said, and let go.

For a second, they just stood there, and the sound of cars and voices from the mouth of the alley seemed far away, muffled somehow.

“You’d better go phone the police,” the man said finally. “Let them know—you’d better go and phone the police now.”

“Right,” Gracie said.

She headed for the mouth of the alley, and something about the grey eyes—those strange, pale eyes—something sent a chill down her spine, and she whirled around to ask—

The alley was empty.

She stood there for several more minutes, and she didn’t know what she believed, not really, but _something_ had happened, _something_ —

“Was the dog still there?” Alisha asked, when she came back to the bar.

“No,” Gracie said. “No, he disappeared. Here, take the blanket—”

She handed the blanket back to Alisha and went behind the bar to phone the police.

“Do you have any idea which direction he was headed, ma’am?” the lady asked.

“No,” Gracie said, because it was true. “No, I don’t know—”

There was a click, like the lady had just hung up, but then a different voice said, “He didn’t say anything about a school, did he?”

Gracie hesitated.

“No,” she said, after a moment’s pause. “No, he didn’t—sorry, to whom am I speaking?”

“You’re quite certain?” the man demanded.

“Sorry, but who is this?”

The dial tone was her only answer.

Gracie hung the phone back up and then leaned her elbows against the bar and thought about it for a little bit.

The pub was beginning to fill up, and so she didn’t have long to stew over what had happened.

Alisha left before she did, and she was wiping down the bar, brow furrowed in thought, when Walter clicked his tongs together, which usually meant the old man had something to say—

“Something on your mind?” Gracie asked, without looking round.

“Bet ‘e was heading west,” Walter said.

“Out on the moors? How do you figure?”

Walter didn’t answer, so she glanced over her shoulder in time to see the old man shrug, still bustling back and forth in his cramped little kitchen, rattling pots and pans and pretending he wasn’t interested in the conversation.

“Strange stuff,” he mumbled. “Used to be kids coming in off the moors, years and years ago—strange stuff always happened out there, seemed like.”

“Strange stuff,” Gracie echoed.

“Yeah.” Walter shrugged again. “Kids in funny clothes, funny way of talking, acting like they’d never seen a telephone—“

“A distinct possibility,” she said, only half paying attention.

“—and then there were all those funny animals.”

Gracie stopped.

Then she turned to face the kitchen.

Walter wouldn’t look at her directly, but she caught him sneaking a glance from under his eyebrows, mustache bristling with what could have been amusement.

“Walter,” she said. “Sometimes I think you know more than you let on.”

He shrugged again. “Been here long enough. Ought to know summat.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “Funny animals. You ever see a big black dog?”

“Once or twice,” he said. “Some kids, you know, you’d see ‘em more’n once. Sometimes a boy’d come in, big black dog with ‘im.”

_He killed my brother._

“I see,” Gracie said, and her voice was very calm, considering they were talking about something completely impossible. “Walter, you didn’t see—earlier today—”

“Course not,” Walter said. “Cos if I’d seen summat, I’d’ve had to call it in, then, wouldn’t I? They’ve got a special hotline and all.”

“I was talking about the dog,” she said, very careful.

“Aye,” Walter said. “So was I.”

“That’s impossible,” Gracie said.

Walter clicked the tongs again. “Like I said. Funny stuff, out there on the moors.”

“What, like fairy rings and full moons, that kind of nonsense?”

“Maybe once. Not so much now, but maybe once, that’s what it was.”

“And now?”

Walter shrugged one more time. “Kids in funny clothes. Funny way of talking. And sometimes a boy’d come in—”

“With a big black dog,” Gracie finished.

Walter’s mustache smiled, even if the man himself didn’t.

“Sometimes, Gracie,” he said. “I think you know more’n you let on.”

“Have you seen that dog?” Alisha asked, the next morning. “D’you think he’ll be back anytime?”

“I don’t think so,” Gracie said, and looked at the blanket Alisha had brought again, just in case. “Think he had somewhere else to be.”


End file.
